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— Mark Twain

Thursday, January 22, 2009

The Wedding Cake!

This is a long overdue post about Geoff and Anita's remade wedding cake, by me!

So first they had a reception and Anita's mom's friend made the cake. But long before that my mom planned to have an open house so her ward would get to see the newly wedded couple too. This was scheduled around the 1st of the year a few weeks after they were married. Mom asked me to do the cake. I did a few other cakes for family and they were so much more work then I ever imagined...I was thinking this time around I will do something simple, yet elegant. Fondant! Instead of using my favorite whip cream icing that can only be found in CA I will try a new kind of smooth cake.

I viewed a ton of youtube videos on how to do the fondant, originally called marzipan...it's a type of almond paste. It tastes disgusting, unless you are from Spain or Germany. It is fun to make into all kinds of shapes. It feels like slightly dry play-dough and you can make it any color. It just needs to be smooth without air bubbles for the cake and you have to do it fast or it will dry out. Simple enough, right?

I found it on sale at Michael's and it was also available online or at Walmart but not at such a good price as Michael's if you have their coupon. I also needed a few other tools and stuff for the cake so I saved the coupon each week and bought the needed supplies one at a time at 40% to 50% off. I'm so thrifty!

This is the original cake for the reception (I didn't make it.)...when I saw it I couldn't believe it was almost exactly like I was going to make it! Ribbon on the bottom of each layer and I wanted a topper on the top and maybe a bow. Her colors were green, black and white.

I was talking to Anita's mom afterward when she was just about going to chuck the whole thing...it had three layers, two were made of Styrofoam. Ah Ha! I could just reuse the bottom of the cake. Only the top was real cake and I could make another real cake for the top and change it a bit! Her mom thought that was a great idea and we took it home!

Here are two fake layers. I had to clean it up a bit and I changed the ribbon.

Then I was ready to operate:

The girls helped me make the little balls to match the bottom layer. They made quite a few before we had enough that were relatively the same size.

TA DA! Now three layers...you can't even tell one was added!

The problem was we had to take out all the roses that went up the side of the cake. Then there were holes on that side. I then needed to fill in the holes or cover them. I thought I would add a few flat flowers that I cut out with a little tiny teeny cookie cutter but it looked so tacky. So I needed a ribbon bow to cascade down the side to hide the mess. Only I don't know how to tie ribbon bows that are beautiful. I asked all my sisters and sister in laws and finally my mom said her neighbor used to work as a florist and she would probably tie it for me. She did in less then a minute...perfect!

Then I had these really poky little bride and groom toppers that I found at the dollar store for 60 cents each. They were just so cute I couldn't pass them up! I think she looks like a little Anita and he almost looks like a love struck Geoff. I covered the bottom blue part with the same green ribbon and it looks like it matches.

They are so cute!

The funniest part is the bride is actually allergic to cake and dairy and stuff. So she just pretended to eat it. That was nice of her.

AND after all that fussing and work... the rest was just thrown into the garbage. You can see the Styrofoam layers. And I walked away. The End.

4 comments:

You did a really good job on the fondant cake. I thought it looked great. And in the end the arch worked out. They are married and I think very few people remember the reception. Too bad the cake didn't get saved in the parents garage, it's cold enough it could have been packed into a box and reopened in a few years (15).